After a tournament match I saw my opponent rolling "The Stick" on his legs - hadn't seen that before on a tennis court. I learned from him that many runners and bikers use it after exercise to get rid off muscle tightness and to speed up recovery. Here's an informational video that explains how it works.

Since moving to New York, I've been playing a lot of tennis on hard court, and I found my muscles getting increasingly tight after playing. So I decided to give the Stick a shot. Once I figured out how to fully relax my muscles when rolling the Stick, I discovered how many knots I had in my legs! My calves felt like rocks.

So over the course of last week, I worked on my legs every day, and have been very happy with the progress. My legs feel like they would after a deep tissue massage. I also noticed a decrease in tightness in my IT bands, and less of a pull on my lower back muscles. Will keep the Stick in my bag for the season, we'll see how it goes!

You can get a Stick for around $30 at Amazon. Here are a few example Sticks:

This is the relatively flexy Marathon Stick that I started out with:

The shorter Travel Stick that's not too stiff either:

The Sprinter Stick which is the most rigid (ended up buying that one too):